The innovation strategies for managing a specific paradox: exploration/exploitation

The present era requires new research in order to manage the current exploration/exploitation paradoxes. The paper analyses the influence of Total Quality Management (TQM) on exploratory and exploitative strategies. The study tests the hypotheses empirically using a sampling of over 12,000 Spanish firms, by performing several logistic regressions to analyse the impact of TQM on each type of strategy innovation. Organisational innovations based on TQM have been very important in Spain in the last years. Managers can use the potential inherent in TQM to meet the exploration–exploitation paradox. TQM contains values pertaining to exploration and exploitation which are useful for promoting strategies for innovation processes, but means a greater weakness for promoting exploration in strategic formulation. When a company engages in internal R&D activities within a TQM environment, its capacity to make commitments and establish objectives in terms of exploration and exploitation is reinforced.